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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

How Good is Resolve's Noise Reduction?

Peter Moretti

Peter Moretti

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One feature exclusive to the full version of Resolve is noise reduction. Does anyone have any experience with it? How does it comapre to Neat Video or Dark Energy? Thanks so much!
 
Neat Image still edges out. That said, Davinci does a decent job while it tries to be realtime.

Peter Moretti said:
One feature exclusive to the full version of Resolve is noise reduction. Does anyone have any experience with it? How does it comapre to Neat Video or Dark Energy? Thanks so much!
Click to expand...
 
Edges out? It's not even in the same universe. I would never use it. It is not based on temporal noise reduction, like Neat Video, which is the only proper way to do noise reduction. Resolve's noise reduction is awful and works pretty much like median filter.
 
Okay, so what's your workflow, may I ask, assuming the cut was done in Media Composer?

Here's my guess, but I really don't know:

MC AAF into After Effects to run Neat Video. But now what do I do? I imagine I have render the AE project as something in order to use the denoised footage in Resolve.

And then what do I render the Resolve project as to bring into an app to add titles? And which app should I use for titles?

Thanks so much for offering your perspective!
 
So you get two generation losses and are twice removed from Raw when colour correcting? Say it ain't so.
 
So are you saying that you'd do the noise reduction after grading, not before?
 
Peter Moretti said:
So are you saying that you'd do the noise reduction after grading, not before?
Click to expand...


That's what I'm saying. Would I prefer to do NR first? Sure, but in the absence of proper NR in Resolve, it's better, than to use what Resolve calls NR.
 
Round tripping from resolve still requires a render, right? Like before noise reduction?... Is there not a way to keep the entire workflow raw (minus the render to deliverable)?
 
You want to keep as much of your pipeline in native R3D as possible and save any non-native processing until the end. NR in resolve just isn't very good. Best use I've found for it is benchmarking CUDA cards. :D

If you're not grading/ finishing out of Resolve, you can use a NeatVideo version that integrates with AfterEffects and apply to native R3D and finish from there. Or the OpenFX version of NeatVideo works with Nuke, Scratch and other apps that are native R3D capable. There are lots of ways to put together workflows that incorporate NR via NeatVideo. Go ahead, buy the two-platform combo pack. it's a frickin' steal for what it does. Of course you need the Pro version to get high bit depth processing/ rendering and greater than HD resolution. You won't be sorry.

Wish Resolve supported OpenFX for plugins and capability extension. That would be... awesome.
 
Mike P. said:
Round tripping from resolve still requires a render, right? Like before noise reduction?... Is there not a way to keep the entire workflow raw (minus the render to deliverable)?
Click to expand...


Obviously you never participated in workflow, that involves VFX.
This insistence on staying RAW, regardless of circumstances is not a good idea. I had graded scores of RED material from DPX. When done correctly, there is no reduction in quality whatsoever. Remember, you can't directly grade bayered material, despite what you been told otherwise.
 
jake blackstone said:
Obviously you never participated in workflow, that involves VFX.
This insistence on staying RAW, regardless of circumstances is not a good idea. I had graded scores of RED material from DPX. When done correctly, there is no reduction in quality whatsoever. Remember, you can't directly grade bayered material, despite what you been told otherwise.
Click to expand...

++++1111! :)

Remember: you never ever grade "RAW"...

Not even with a Rocket. If it is not transcoded, you grade from a "live transcode", which of course spends a few computing cycles and is anything BUT RAW, and if the metadata is destructive, the process is destructive. More often than not, the metadata IS indeed destructive...

In a multi-department workflow, transcodes is the way to keep things lossless and consistent.
You really do NOT want each person (wether "in the know or not") to make up his/her own metadatasettings, if you want a consistent looking result.

Transcoded workflows can be 100% lossless and a bit easier to handle in some circumstances than "RAW".

Anyhow. Jake is right.
 
jake blackstone said:
Obviously you never participated in workflow, that involves VFX.
This insistence on staying RAW, regardless of circumstances is not a good idea. I had graded scores of RED material from DPX. When done correctly, there is no reduction in quality whatsoever. Remember, you can't directly grade bayered material, despite what you been told otherwise.
Click to expand...
May I ask what codec/format you use when bringing footage from Resolve into After Effects or Premiere? Thanks!
 
ProRes 4444 or DPX/EXR come to my mind…
 
Only drawback from NR after the grade its that you loose the frames right before and after the cut that help you get that consistent NR thru-out the shot. That said, you could bring everything back to your finishing app with 5-7 frames of handles and solve >that< problem.

I find NR to be useful in other things like reducing the noise on a reference version of the footage for keying and secondary purposes, not necessarily on the actual footage itself.
 
One more advantage that come to mind from working directly from raw is that you can process your grade at full 5K and then downconvert to 2k/hd. If you wanted to do that with a previous transcoding step involved you would have to increase your storage size dramatically. We have found that finicky secondaries turn out better that way.

Yet another advantage is using the raw debayering for applying different white balance values in different parts of the shot and then blending them. really useful when you have mixed temps and interiors/hdr/exteriors.

Now, in no way I am saying that one approach is superior to the other one. It just so happens that one approach is better at some stuff and the other at the other stuff. its up to the post-sup to figure out where the most benefits lie for the project.
 
+1 for NeatVideo. Back in the SD days, we had had a Digital Vision DVNR 1000. NetVideo beat it...
 
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